Parikrma, giving hope to India through education. 2 stories.

Parikrma HumanityFoundation is a non-profit organization committed to provide educationto children coming from the poor slums of Bangalore. They have 4 schools withover 1500 children. Education is just one aspects of their daily work as theyhave put in place a parental system providing 3 meals a day, health check,glasses, hygiene tutoring etc…Thechildren continue to live with their parents in the slum bringing back to theirhomes what they have learned during the day. In this way children are used as multipliersin their communities acting as a catalystfor positive changes. The schools are run in English as the best private schoolin India in order to give to these kids the possibility to compete for the bestjobs once their education is complete. They have been able to send and continueto support students who decided to go to the University after their experiencein Parikrma. The Parikrma model is very successfulconsidering they have a very low dropout rate as less than 1% of these childrendecide to leave the school before completing their studies. This is an amazingstatistic compared to the 92% drop out rate in the public school in the samearea. The school is free for children and their families as the costs arecovered only with donations from corporations and individuals.

In this case, the SAP team has been asked to improve theirorganization and their go to market strategy in order to make their effort tocollect donations more effective. The SAP employees working on this project are:Helle, Vesi and myself. The team is a fantastic blend of Danish organization,Bulgarian love for processes and the Italian art of messing around.

Here two stories showing how Parikrma works and how they help to make India a better place for children:

The things that amaze you walking in theclassrooms are the smile on their faces, their confidence and vivacity.Sometimes you have to make a big effort to remind yourself about the tragicbackground of these kids: domestic violence, alcoholised or prisoned parentsamong other tragedies. The first story is about one child having his fatherimprisoned for life. The kid goes to meet his father almost every week andstarted to tell his father to take care of himself stressing the importance ofhygiene. The father started to slowly change and one day Shukla Bose (founderand leader of Parikrma) received acall from the director of the prison congratulating her on the fact that thechild has been able to turn his father in a model prisoner. This is an exampleon how Parikrma doesn’t help only children but also their communities.

One day Shukla Bose met a boy begging on thestreet. The kid was abandoned by his parents and lived on the street. Shukla was able to convince him to attend herschool. The child had serious problems of communication and the organizationpaid a lot of attention on him with special programmes. Today this kid isresponsible for the training of new employees in Domino Pizza, a job usuallytaken by middle class applicants. This story shows how successful Parikrma is in giving children not justeducation but the possibility to build better life thanks to equal schools.

A special thanks to Helle, Vesi and the children in Parikrma. They make every day so specialhere in Bangalore.